Straight Dope on the IPod's Birth

Leander Kahney
10.17.06

Schiller also suggested that menus should scroll faster the longer the wheel is turned, a stroke of genius that distinguishes the iPod from the agony of competing players. Schiller's scroll wheel didn't come from the blue, however; scroll wheels are pretty common in electronics, from scrolling mice to Palm thumb wheels. Bang & Olufsen BeoCom phones have an iPod-like dial for navigating lists of phone contacts and calls. Back in 1983, the Hewlett Packard 9836 workstation had a keyboard with a similar wheel for scrolling text.

The interface was mocked up by Tim Wasko, an interactive designer who came to Apple from NeXT, where he had worked with Jobs. Wasko had previously been responsible for the clean, simple interface in Apple's QuickTime player. Like the hardware designers, Wasko designed mockup after mockup, presenting the variations on large glossy printouts that could be spread over a conference table to be quickly sorted and discussed.

The output of a committee is a function of the quality of its members and how they're led. As the iPod came together, it garnered more and more attention from Jobs, whose insistence on excellence and high standards are stamped onto the gadget as indelibly as Apple's logo.

"Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like," Jobs told the Times. "That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

Jobs insisted the iPod work seamlessly with iTunes, and that many functions should be automated, especially transferring songs. The model was Palm's HotSync software.

"Plug it in. Whirrrrrr. Done," Jobs told Fortune.

The iPod name was offered up by Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter who lives in San Francisco. Chieco was recruited by Apple to be part of a small team tasked with helping figure out how to introduce the new player to the general public, not just computer geeks.

During the process, Jobs had settled on the player's descriptive tag line -- "1,000 songs in your pocket" -- so the name was freed up from having to be descriptive. It didn't have to reference music or songs.

While describing the player, Jobs constantly referred to Apple's digital hub strategy: The Mac is a hub, or central connection point, for a host of gadgets. This prompted Chieco to start thinking about hubs: objects that other things connect to.

The ultimate hub, Chieco figured, would be a spaceship. You could leave the spaceship in a smaller vessel, a pod, but you'd have to return to the mother ship to refuel and get food. Then Chieco was shown a prototype iPod, with its stark white plastic front.

"As soon as I saw the white iPod, I thought 2001," said Chieco. "Open the pod bay door, Hal!"

Then it was just a matter of adding the "i" prefix, as in "iMac."

Chieco declined to mention any of the alternative names that were considered. A source at Apple confirmed Chieco's story.

Athol Foden, a naming expert and president of Brighter Naming of Mountain View, California, noted that Apple had already trademarked the iPod name for an internet kiosk, a project that never saw the light of day. On July 24, 2000, Apple registered the iPod name for "a public internet kiosk enclosure containing computer equipment," according to the filing.

Chieco said the internet kiosk is probably a coincidence. He suggested that maybe another team at Apple registered the name for a different project, but because of the company's penchant for secrecy, his team wasn't aware what the other had done. And neither, apparently, was Steve Jobs. Chieco said neither Jobs -- nor anyone else -- seemed aware that the company had already registered the iPod trademark.

"The name 'iPod' makes much more sense for an internet kiosk, which is a pod for a human, than a music player," said Foden.

"They discovered in their tool chest of registered names they had 'iPod,'" he added. "If you think about the product, it doesn't really fit. But it doesn't matter. It's short and sweet."

Foden said the name is a stroke of genius: It is simple, memorable and, crucially, it doesn't describe the device, so it can still be used as the technology evolves, even if the device's function changes. He noted the "i" prefix has a double meaning: It can mean "internet," as in "iMac," or it can denote the first person: "I," as in me.

On Oct. 23, 2001, about five weeks after 9/11, Jobs introduced the finished product at a special event at Apple's HQ.

"This is a major, major breakthrough," Jobs told the assembled reporters.